Baby I Was Born To Run!

“BEEP BEEP BEEP” This is the unrelenting sound of the most basic alarm clock in the world, which is now yelling at me from my nightstand in the hotel. Today though It was the sound of destiny. I hadn’t slept a wink the night before, maybe a couple hours. I was too nervous. I had contemplated a couple times diving into the goodies bag I had gotten at the expo and trying the sleeping shake mix they added. “Nawww” I thought. It would probably make me sick or oversleep. I’m taking NO chances on this one. I got up and started to take a shower and play my plan over and over in head. I may not be a professional runner but that doesn’t mean I’m a moron. I plan for everything in this race. Rest Stops, my pacer group, the routes and the mental game. I started getting dressed and woke my wife up. “we need to get headed out soon if I want to get warm and find my pace group” I said. I turned on the tv to check the weather and ate my protein bar. The night before I did forget one thing. Breakfast! I always have a small bit of protein and toast before a run. I feel like it helps get me going. The hotel lobby of course had nothing but high priced liquor and candy bars! Then I found the one last Protein Bar. “Must be other runners in this hotel” I said. “45 degrees and rainy, fantastic” I said. This was not the weather I was hoping for my first Half-marathon. Luckily the night before we made a mad dash over to a large Sporting goods store for some long sleeve undershirt, headband and running gloves. I am happy now we did. We left the hotel room and headed down to the lobby. The sun apparently did NOT have a alarm clock I gathered because it was not even remotely peaking out yet. The lobby was filled with tons of runners. Young, old, good bad, they were all here. Some were sitting down eating breakfast. A small group was running laps around the inside commons area assumingly to get warmed up. I thought that might not be a bad idea so I started a light walk. This was such a strange experience. I mean just 6 months ago I was weighing in at 378lbs, Smoking and drinking and getting winded walking up one flight of stairs. Now I’m running a Half Marathon and among hundreds of runners. It felt like I was among my people. With kindred spirits testing themselves. If it wasn’t for this whole 3 Goods Philosophy, I most likely would never have made it here!